It is an alternate version of the
story. Although it assumes that the legendary version contains the core of truth,
the mini-series views some of the incidents from a completely different
perspective. Many people objected to it for presenting a dumbed-down
alternative to an important epic, or for unwarranted historical
revisionism.

Does that make sense to you? I
doesn't to me.

The Trojan War is one of the most
commemorated events in human history. The greatest painters of every
generation have memorialized it. The greatest authors have lionized
its heroes. Various incidents are immortalized in every form of
iconography from modern advertising logos to linguistic idioms to
ancient pottery. Many people who are completely ignorant of real events
in their own times can probably identify a "Trojan horse" or
describe why a vulnerability is called an "Achilles heel",
all because
of events that happened 3200 years ago.

That familiarity makes it seem real
to us.

But frankly, there are not many
things we know about the Trojan War. We can't even say that
it really happened.

If it did occur, it probably happened
around 1200 B.C. If Homer really existed, he probably composed The
Iliad around 700 B.C. It was probably written down for the first
time around 500 B.C. The only thing we're pretty sure of is that the
version known in 500 B.C. is still virtually identical to one we can
read today if we choose to and are able to do so. It is also likely
that this written version was very close to the original composition
from a couple of centuries earlier, since the work was in a very
complex poetic meter (dactyllic hexameter), which didn't really
allow it to be altered much from telling to retelling. To avoid the
interruption of constant disclaimers, I will assume for the
remainder of this essay that there was a single author named Homer,
and that he composed his works orally in the period between 750 and
650 BC. I will also assume that there was a Troy, and it fell
between 1250 and 1180 B.C. These are not certainties, by any means,
but they are based on the best available evidence. (See notes and
links below.)

Homer's work is, was, and always will
be great literature. It may be the most important unifying cultural
treasure of European civilization. It was the first great mythical work to be
written down, it is still regarded by Greeks as complex and
beautiful poetry, and its enduring popularity in other languages speaks volumes for the timeless quality of the story. The
only problem
comes when people want to treat it not as literature, but as
history. At best, it was composed five centuries after the events
which inspired it. The legend therefore grew over five centuries of
embellishment by superstitious, primitive, ignorant, people who took
pride in their heroes and their country, and believed in a pantheon
of ludicrous superhuman deities. If you could go back with pictures
and a battery-powered TV/VCR and tell these people about Space Ghost,
they would think he was real, and would build a temple to him.

It is not known to what extent Homer
thought his account was true. Did he really believe that everything
happened as he recounted it, including the constant interference of gods
and goddesses, or did he simply use the gods to mythify his story
even though he knew it was a crock? We will never know the
answer to this with any certainty, but presumably the ancients did believe that the gods
intervened directly in their lives, so Homer may have thought all of
it happened as he described it. Clearly there are elements
in the Iliad that give it a gloss of authenticity, like the minute
accounts of the commanders and their ships and the men that sailed
with them. Did Homer simply fabricate these details to overlay an
encyclopedic patina which would make the myth seem
more authentic, or were these details handed down with accuracy for
centuries? Or is there a third explanation? We will never know these answers, either.

But there is one thing we know for
sure: the ancient myth is bullshit, whether they believed it or not.

The most obvious reason is that there
are no prophetesses and there are no gods wandering among humans.
Helen wasn't the daughter of a god who disguised himself as a big
duckie, Achilles wasn't virtually invulnerable because he was bathed in the River Styx,
Cassandra could not see the future, and so forth. Those things
should give you a pretty
good whiff of some major bullshit in the vicinity.

There is a less obvious reason as
well. The Iliad is the Greek version of the story, and nobody wrote the
Trojan version. There are two clichés worth remembering in this
context:

History is written by the winners.

There are two sides to every story.

Imagine an account of the history of
President Reagan's administration, as written entirely by the
admirers who want his likeness on Mt. Rushmore. Then imagine an
account written entirely by the Reagan detractors who think he was a
dunce and that his administration was riddled with criminality. You
see what I'm driving at? The Iliad is a partisan account, and
it had 500 years to become embellished by people who were so
ignorant they really believed that women could get pregnant from
having sex with a waterfowl. Surely the ancient Greeks were no less
susceptible to partisanship and pride and bias than we. Perhaps they
spun events even more than we do. And they were a lot more ignorant.

So how much of The Iliad and its
corresponding ancient legends should we
believe? I can answer that. Go back to my original point about the
Reagan administration. Imagine that the account was only written by
his supporters. Imagine that his supporters sincerely believe that
Jesus personally intervened to make Reagan defeat godless Communism.
Imagine that their account is handed down verbally for 500 years,
with no libraries or other records to dispute the oral accounts, and
nobody left alive to remember what really happened for the last 450 of those
500 years. Now imagine that the people who tell the Reagan story
over the centuries truly believe that a human woman can get pregnant
from goose-fucking. Got a picture? How much of that account do you think you could believe
500 years later? That's how much of the legend you should believe.

The script for this mini-series
simply postulated that some of the legendary account was
pseudo-religious myth, and some of it Greek "spin". It
tried to humanize and de-spin the story, hypothetically of course. The
legendary account says, for example, that the Trojan prince, Paris,
was treated as visiting royalty by Menelaus, and that Paris
responded to this kindness by kidnapping Menelaus's wife (Helen of
Sparta, later Helen of Troy), with the help of the goddess
Aphrodite. The mini-series chooses to adhere to the same basic facts -
Paris visited, was feasted, left with Helen - but spins it another
way. Menelaus and his brother were scumbags. They humiliated Helen
and treated her like they treated their prize cattle. She fell in
love with the noble, unaffected Paris, who had been raised as a
shepherd. The Spartans had long intended to conquer Troy for its
riches. They did wine and dine Paris for a time, but only to milk
him for information which would facilitate a battle plan. When Paris
escaped a certain death sentence in Sparta, Helen insisted on
accompanying him. In fact, she swam out to the Trojan boat, which
was already underway.

There are many other places where the
mini-series offers an alternative to the legend, but the one example
above should give you the general idea of the revisionist premise.
The new legend in brief: King Priam of Troy was wise and just, Helen really loved
Paris because he was a great guy, King Agamemnon was a completely
power-crazed buttchasm, and his younger brother Menelaus was a spineless toady.

I reckon this version makes just as much sense as
the legend. Maybe far more. At least all of the events seem justified,
the behaviors seem properly motivated, and the convenient impact of
the "hand of the gods" has been mostly excised from the account.

NUDITY REPORT

Sienna Guillory (Helen) is gorgeous, and walks
around naked in several scenes. Bare buns, see-through breasts.

(Since they claimed to tell the "true
story", it is inexplicable that they retained Paris's encounter with
the three goddesses and the apple of discord, as well as Cassandra's flawless prognostications, the fact that Helen was
the daughter of Zeus, and a few other minor supernatural elements.)

In general, I liked what they did with the story.
Although some of the characters are one-dimensional (Achilles is a
total asscrevice), some of the others (Menelaus, for example, who
usually ends up as an unredeemed and unbalanced villain in the story) are
allowed to breathe and to grow. I liked the fact that the
script made Iphigenia a beautiful, bouncing, loving, pre-schooler
who was slaughtered like a sacrificial goat by her father, right after she ran merrily into his arms. I
very much liked the way they had Clytemnestra kill her husband, the
arrogant Agamemnon, who had killed their innocent little daughter as
a sacrifice for favorable winds, and I could feel her anger when she
did it. I felt that I would have done what she did, right or wrong. Isn't that how
drama is supposed to work?

I would have been completely thrilled
if the script had gone one step further. I would love to see a
script about the Trojan war which assumes that there were no
supernatural events at all, and gives a hypothetical recreation of
the actual historical events which could have inspired the mythical
version, using the best available archeological and historical
evidence.

Assume Helen had a normal father.

Assume Cassandra was a madwoman (or
didn't exist at all)

Assume there were no gods and
goddesses, but that the characters believed in them. This interpretation would
still allow Agamemnon to kill his daughter, because he believed it
would bring the favorable winds. Perhaps a week later, the
winds would reverse, and their superstitious minds would make the
connection with the sacrifice, because they'd assume that gods do
not always act immediately.

Show the spin doctors at work.
Picture the actual events, then show the balladeers' version of what
has been pictured earlier.

Oh, well. I guess if I want that
script, I'll have to write it myself. Fat chance of that. In the
meantime, this project gets about half way to what I'd like to see,
and gets there in an entertaining, sometimes moving way.

It isn't perfect. The dialogue can be
cheesy, the attitudes of the characters seem too modern (ala Xena),
other characters are too one-dimensional, Helen seems like a
petulant 14 year old, and the actor playing Paris has all the depth of
Ashton Kutcher.

But if If you like the whole epic costume
drama kind of thing, and you don't really care that this version
does not agree with the Iliad, you might pick it up at Blockbuster some
weekend. I was aware of the project's weaknesses, but I got involved
enough with the characters that I watched it, three hours of it,
without the fast forward button.

Helen of Troy (2003) is a TV
miniseries filmed in Malta, and tells "the real story" of Helen
of Troy, and the 10 year war between Sparta and Troy. This is
decidedly not my type of film -- a costumer running 2 hours and
57 minutes, but I was enthralled beginning to end. It was epic
in every way, with amazing sets and costumes, battles with
thousands of soldiers, and excellent special effects. It was
filmed in Malta, and they tried to be as authentic as possible
in the design of Sparta and Troy, and also the weapons, utensils
and costumes.

Most of the criticisms
complain about the fact that the film deviates from Homer's
Iliad. I mentioned some time ago that differing from the book it
was based on is not a valid criticism for a film, but, in this
case, it is outright stupidity. The filmmakers never claim to
have made an adaptation of the Iliad, and in fact say they are
telling "the true story" right in the introduction of the film.

Whether or not you enjoy the
story, you will appreciate what they achieved artistically and
technically.

The meaning of the IMDb
score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of
excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars
from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm
watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars
from the critics. The fives are generally not
worthwhile unless they are really your kind of
material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics,
or a C- from our system.
Films rated below five are generally awful even if you
like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one
and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less,
depending on just how far below five the rating
is.

My own
guideline: A means the movie is so good it
will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not
good enough to win you over if you hate the
genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an
open mind about this type of film. C means it will only
appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover
appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but
will be considered excellent by genre fans, while
C- indicates that it we found it to
be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you
like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if
you love the genre. F means that the film is not only
unappealing across-the-board, but technically
inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for
fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is
recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C-
that often, because we like movies and we think that most of
them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know
that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below
C-.

Based on this description, both reviewers liked it, Tuna liked it more, and
decided the correct classification was C+, Scoop thought C was
more like it.